Positioned By Fear

I love natural bob-tailed cats and I always have a momma cat raising babies around this place. It's great, cause you can enjoy them as kittens and give them all away at weaning age. Natural bob-tails aren't everywhere so someone always wants one. We just had a litter of 4: 3 boys, 1 girl, and all bob-tailed. It was this cat's first litter. I fixed her a place on the back screened-in porch. She could come and go and the kittens have room to play when old enough---perfect. But being a first-time momma, she was a bit nervous about the little dog coming through there, although the dog was not a danger.

First chance she got, she moved them. We have a big, Jacuzzi tub and she found a small opening she could carry them through. No problem, we removed some cedar boards so that we could reach them and get them out. Oh no, she wasn't satisfied to be there - no, she found ANOTHER opening where she could take them FURTHER from "harm" and took them under the floor, between the floor and the downstairs ceiling. Great. We got 4 kittens under the tub, between the floor and ceiling and we're leaving to go on the road! Dumb cat. She thought she was protecting them from harm, but all she was doing was moving them out of my reach. I am the one who ultimately cares for them and keeps them safe! Her fear had actually caused her to put her own kittens in harm's way.

We do the EXACT same thing. We allow our own fears to influence our thinking processes and every time we act on the basis of fear, we move that area of our life out of the Master's reach. The safety of her kittens rest in me, NOT by hiding them in the dark, in a non-reachable place! It's just like that with us. Jesus is our place of safety. If my life is given totally over to Him, He is responsible for my safety and welfare. Every time I make a move out of fear, I in essence am saying that God can't protect me in this area. So I move out of the light - out of the place of faith He wants me to grow in and out of His reach.

We are afraid of being rejected so we put up walls that don't allow others in. They finally give up and leave us to ourselves, thereby causing the very thing that we feared, come to pass. Some people can be so afraid of being sick that they worry themselves into sickness. Ever been so afraid of making a mistake that you can't do anything right? Get the picture? Whenever we move in fear, we set ourselves up for the very thing we're afraid of. Thinking we are protecting ourselves, when in reality, we are simply removing ourselves from the Master's reach. Not a safe place to be.

The kittens? They finally came out - two weeks later. They're playing on the back porch right now. Don't you think it's time you came out too? It's much more fun living in the light, within the Master's reach!